Sijia Yao

Sijia Yao is an Assistant Professor of Chinese Language and Culture at Soka University of America. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Purdue University. Her research focuses on comparative and Sinophone literature/media studies, love/affect studies, critical theory, and post-socialism. Yao teaches courses such as CHI 401 (Cultural History of China) and Learning Cluster 200 (Sinophone Cinema). Her scholarship includes the book *Cosmopolitan Love: Utopian Vision in D.H. Lawrence and Eileen Chang* (2023) and peer-reviewed articles analyzing Chinese literature, film, and cultural phenomena. Yao has received grants for Chinese language education research and teaching excellence awards at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She has reviewed works in Sinophone studies, including Lily Wong’s *Transpacific Attachments*.